A Time Synchronization Method of Sensor Network using Single Flooding Algorithm

Usually time synchronization is performed after routing tree is constructed. This thesis proposes a time synchronization algorithm combined with single-flooding routing tree construction algorithm in a single path. TSRA (Time Synchronization Routing Algorithm) uses routing packets to construct a routing tree. Two types of time information are added to the routing packet: one is the packet receiving time, and the other is the packet sending time. Time offset and transmission time-delay between parent node and child node could be retrieved from the added time information using LTS (Lightweight Time Synchronization) algorithm. Then parent node sends the time offset and transmission time to children nodes and children nodes can synchronize their time to the parent node time along the routing tree. The performance of proposed algorithm is compared to the TPSN (Timing-sync Protocol for Sensor Networks) which is known to have high accuracy using NS2 simulation tool. The simulation result shows that the accuracy of time synchronization is comparable to TPSN, the synchronization time of all sensor nodes is faster than TPSN, and the energy consumption is less than TPSN.